People with epilepsy could end up with criminal records because police fail to recognize their condition, a charity has warned. They then inadvertently enter the criminal justice system because of behavior they cannot control.

Epilepsy Scotland said
people could be arrested for shoplifting or getting into the
wrong car when they were mid-seizure and unaware of their
actions.

As part of an awareness campaign for police and law officers, the
charity has developed a training DVD to show what seizure-related
behavior looks like.

It shows how an epileptic person can have uncontrolled complex
seizures that to outsiders can seem as if the affected person is
drunk, and could resist arrest during the seizure, or to be
acting illegally or indecently.

Lesslie Young, chief executive of Epilepsy Scotland, said:
“We know some people can enter the criminal justice system
inadvertently because of behavior which is a direct result of
seizure activity over which they have no control.”

There are 42 different kinds of seizures and some start with only
a few seconds’ warning. People can appear in a trance-like state
and are unable to speak for several minutes. Everyday tasks can
be problematic, Young said.

“They're in the shop, they're picking up the garment to have
a look at, their seizure starts and they walk out the shop
holding whatever piece of merchandise they may have. The other
thing they might try to do is get into the wrong car or the wrong
house. So they've been performing an activity, their seizure
starts. They continuing to try and do that but
inappropriately.”

She added that cases, in which a person gets arrested while
having an epileptic seizure, are often dropped when corroborative
medical evidence is provided. However, it causes “a
significant cost to the accused in high levels of stress and
anxiety as well as the unnecessary use of judicial
resources.”

Young emphasized that teaching police officers and the
prosecution service how to detect and handle seizure-related
behavior helps prevent possible miscarriages of justice.

Iain Livingstone, Deputy Chief Constable of Scotland, said:
“Our focus is on keeping people safe and ensuring that we
respond in the best way possible to the individual needs of
members of the public who come into contact with the police,
whether they are victims of crime, witnesses or an accused.”

He said that whenever officers come in contact with individuals,
it’s vital to get it right the first time.

In October, five police officers were served with gross
misconduct notices regarding the death of a 32-year-old man who
was allegedly restrained during an epileptic seizure.

A neighbor mistook the man’s shouting for an argument, while the
man was having a seizure at home, and called the police. When
officers arrived at the house, the man walked out in a confused
state – behavior that is common among epileptics during a
seizure.

The police, however, assumed the man was violent, even though his
girlfriend told them he was suffering an epileptic seizure.

“They pushed him to the ground and three police officers sat
on his chest to restrain him, at which point he had a heart
attack,” his aunt told the Independent. “But they didn’t
realize and put him in the van.”